A Polish YouTuber has successfully heated a room using more than 130 supermarket donuts, demonstrating it may be cheaper than wood. Credit: Ramon Boersbroek – CC BY-NC 2.0 via Flickr.
A Polish YouTuber has successfully heated a room using more than 130 supermarket donuts, demonstrating that the sugary pastries can be a cheaper fuel source than wood pellets amid soaring energy costs in Central Europe.
Marek Hoffmann, known online as “AdBuster,” conducted the experiment after noticing that deeply discounted donuts sold ahead of Poland’s “Fat Thursday” holiday cost less per kilogram than some conventional heating fuels.
Hoffmann compared the calorific value of wood briquettes, which measure approximately 18.27 megajoules per kilogram, against the donuts, which he calculated at roughly 18.5 megajoules per kilogram. To test his theory, he purchased 133 donuts at a promotional price of 9 groszy (approximately €0.02) each, spending a total of roughly €2.85 for about 10 kilograms of pastry.
The polish youtuber discovered donuts are cheaper than conventional heaters
According to Hoffmann’s calculations, the 10 kilograms of donuts were approximately €1.60 cheaper than the equivalent weight of basic wood pellet fuel.
The YouTuber placed the pastries into a small cast-iron stove and lit a fire. He reported that the high sugar and fat content created a potent fuel source.
“It’s been burning for almost five hours now, non-stop, and there’s no end in sight,” Hoffmann said in his video, noting that the temperature climbed to several hundred degrees Celsius. “I don’t know what’s going on here. The oil is bubbling all the time. The oil from the donuts is boiling all the time.”
Fat Thursday is Poland’s holiday before lent
The experiment coincides with “Fat Thursday,” a traditional celebration before Lent when Poles consume large quantities of donuts, known locally as pączki. During the holiday, some discount chains slashed prices further to roughly €0.01 per donut, which would bring the cost of 10 kilograms of fuel down to less than €1.60.
While the test proved the technical and economic viability of burning pastries, Hoffmann acknowledged the moral implications of using food for heat.
“A certain ethical doubt arises,” Hoffmann said. “The question arises whether it would not be better for someone to eat these doughnuts… But then we would not find out that doughnuts are good fuel.”
High energy prices in recent years have forced some Polish households to seek alternative fuel sources, with residents occasionally burning oats or corn as substitutes for coal or wood.